The Great PDL frame heist!

Started by puddnanners, July 30, 2003, 01:59:04 AM

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puddnanners

I work as a projectionist at a movie house and have been loving my job for several years.  There aint nothing like building movies up and threading the projectors and doing other things that get my hands all over the celluloid.  When PDL came out last year, and all six reels of it arrived and needed to be built up (spliced together) I volunteered to do it.  I really can't explain the feeling of holding this film in my hands, it was like holding gold, I mean it was PTA's wonderful creation in its most natural form, and I had my mitts all over it.  I built it up slow, stopping often to look at individual frames (beautiful, I tells ya!) and then it hit me hard.  I had the urge to carfully cut out and take home several of these gorgeous frames, so many of them were like great, miniature pieces of art.  I pondered it for minutes (that's actually quite a bit of pondering time in a projection booth, what with starting movies and all), and decided against it, not because i am morally against stealing bits of film (lord knows I've done it before), but it just didn't feel right to take out even 1/24th of a second of the movie, because PTA probably would notice it if he saw it, even if he didn't actually respond to it, his brain would proably register it, and that would be just plain wrong.  To this day i kind of wish I had just one frame of PDL, but in retrospect, its not that bad, because I do have a PDL trailer (I'm not trying to brag, i just need to end this story).  Would any of you have taken a bit of PDL for yourselves?

The Silver Bullet

I would have just stolen the whole six reels and driven to Mexico.
RABBIT n. pl. rabĀ·bits or rabbit[list=1]
  • Any of various long-eared, short-tailed, burrowing mammals of the family Leporidae.
  • A hare.
    [/list:o][/size]

Pubrick

Quote from: The Silver BulletI would have just stolen the whole six reels and driven to Mexico.
to.. marry them?
under the paving stones.

oakmanc234

I like that story. I would've been semi-tempted but, it just would feel stupid. Weeks afterwards I probably would be kicking myself.
'Welcome the Thunderdome, bitch'

puddnanners

The silver bullet, it is funny you mention stealing the film, because a friend of mine who used to work at the theater before he got fired, stole a print of Star Wars Episode Two.  Everyone who worked at the theater was a suspect, and lucasfilm people were pissed as fuck, and (this is true) actually came to my house with a cop and a warrent and went through all of my house looking for that damn film.  My friend panicked, and actually hid the film in an abondened van that had been setting on this one street downtown for a few weeks.  Believe it our not, the van was towed to the car impound lot two days later, with the print in it, and that's when the shit really hit the fan.  My friend broke into the lot and stole the print back out of the van (his fingerprints were all over it, so he was getting rid of the evidence) and put it in a trash bag and put it in his parents storage space, were it still sits to this day.  It was pretty big news locally, and actual made its way into some publications (the story of the film getting stolen and lucasfilm getting all pissed off because they thought it was stolen to make bootleg copies of, when really it was stolen because my friend is a drunk)

Sal

lol, the things people go through.  Awesome story.  I've got a friend who's a projectionist and I know he steals frames from films every once in awhile.  No PTA though!

Ghostboy

I'm a projectionist too, and I felt the same way about building up PDL. I have a trailer as well (along with a Boogie Nights and Magnolia, among many many others). And the whole SW thing happened to me too, except that it was with Episode 1. The FBI checked my house, and made a lot of people take lie detector tests. The only difference was that  I never found out who took it, and I don't know if they did either.

Being a projectionist is a great job. Too bad it doesn't pay much.

Redlum

Quote from: P
Quote from: The Silver BulletI would have just stolen the whole six reels and driven to Mexico.
to.. marry them?



It must be a great job, and almost perfect the setting for some kind of Ealing/Carry on film.

That lucasfilm debacle is pretty scary. Where did it happen?
\"I wanted to make a film for kids, something that would present them with a kind of elementary morality. Because nowadays nobody bothers to tell those kids, \'Hey, this is right and this is wrong\'.\"
  -  George Lucas

Marty McSuperfly

Quote from: puddnannersThe silver bullet, it is funny you mention stealing the film, because a friend of mine who used to work at the theater before he got fired, stole a print of Star Wars Episode Two.  Everyone who worked at the theater was a suspect, and lucasfilm people were pissed as fuck, and (this is true) actually came to my house with a cop and a warrent and went through all of my house looking for that damn film.  My friend panicked, and actually hid the film in an abondened van that had been setting on this one street downtown for a few weeks.  Believe it our not, the van was towed to the car impound lot two days later, with the print in it, and that's when the shit really hit the fan.  My friend broke into the lot and stole the print back out of the van (his fingerprints were all over it, so he was getting rid of the evidence) and put it in a trash bag and put it in his parents storage space, were it still sits to this day.  It was pretty big news locally, and actual made its way into some publications (the story of the film getting stolen and lucasfilm getting all pissed off because they thought it was stolen to make bootleg copies of, when really it was stolen because my friend is a drunk)

That sounds like it would make a great movie!

TheVoiceOfNick

Correct me if i'm wrong (i often am), but aren't movies cut every so often after a few showings? Like a frame or something? This is why a new movie looks smooth at the reel change (with the cigarette thingy), and when you go to a $2 bargain movie house with an old print it seems almost like a giant jump cut at the reel change? I may be wrong but I thought there was cutting involved.

Nick

puddnanners

Nick, actually, when movies are built up, two frames from each reel are cut off (the first and the last).  This is so when the movie gets broken down, the projectionist will have a reference as to which reel goes in which can, where the reel ends, etc.  So I guess with a film of PDL's length, six reels, 12 frames were included with the film but were not shown.  Also, in theory, movies are not cut after a few showings (or any showings for that matter), but what occassionally happens is that a portion of the film might get damaged (water or scratches or whatever) and frames may get spliced out throughout the course of a print's life.  Also, with the bargain movie houses, they often get film that has already been built up, than broken down, then sent to them, so if the projectionist at the original theater did a shitty job breaking it down, then the reel changes might suck.  

Also, the lucasfilm thing happened in Missouri